THE SLANDERERS
By WARWICK DEEPING
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS
PUBLISHERS • MCMV
Copyright, 1904, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.
Published February, 1905.
TO
MY GOOD FRIEND
JAMES MACARTHUR
Contents
| Part I |
| Part II |
| Part III |
| Part IV |
THE SLANDERERS
I
HAD Zeus Gildersedge been a man susceptible to themore beneficent influences of nature, history mighthave chronicled him as a man rich in the finer æstheticismsof the soul.
The Hun was ever a Hun, though he stormed throughthe Vale of Tempe or gazed upon Lombardic lakes,splendid under a cloudless sky. Worthy follower ofsome commercial Attila was Zeus Gildersedge, a beinggranite to all nobler truths, impervious, irresponsive,unimpressionable, mute. Orpheus would have abandonedhim in despair. A fabulist might have classed himwith Lot’s wife petrified in the plain beyond Sodom.
Zeus Gildersedge, misanthrope and consumer ofopium, maintained a monasticism in his vices and keptthe world at bay behind the red-brick wall that boundedhis patrimony. Imagine an antique, gabled house perchedon a hill overlooking the sea, a house of quaintarchaicness, warm of bosom, opulent in roof and theglittering lozenges of its casements, girdled with a beltof cypresses and yews. The place had derived a profuseand negligent picturesqueness from its master’s avarice.Roses bloom even for a miser, and Zeus Gildersedge wascontent to suffer the magnanimity of nature. Ivyfestooned the casements; wistaria panoplied the porch;roses, red and white, reared the banners of Junetide onthe walls. The garden was a delectable wilderness, adusky pleasaunce smothered with flowering shrubs thatclaimed a lusty and superabundant liberty. From thegarden green downs dipped southward to black cliffsand an opalescent sea. North, east, and west uplandand wooded valley stretched dim and variable as aregion of romance.
Gold, opiu